Can't really blame the lovely Sanaa Lathan for avoiding this sequel the same way I avoid anything with Ed Burns in it. Regardless, I'm confident that Shareeka Epps will hold it down. Leaked plot details indicate that her character will catch Predator -- as troubled as he is gifted -- smoking crack in the girls' locker room, a watershed moment that creates a powerful but delicate connection between them. One girl from the wrong side of the tracks. One humanoid killing machine bent on eradicating his wretched extraterrestrial foes. They aren't as different as they seem...but will their precipitous search for understanding destroy the very bond they so fought so hard to forge? music:Broken Social Scene, "Shampoo Suicide"For a good five minutes, I contemplated not posting this until tomorrow because I didn't want to tip my hand to the fact that I'm sitting around at 10:30 on a Friday night watching sci-fi movie trailers on YouTube. But they say there comes a point in every man's underpaid college graduate's life when these types of things stop being socially mortifying and start being, well, comforting.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

From an old post about Maclaren brand strollers from Babble.com's Strollerderby, "The Mother of all Urban Parenting Blogs."

When I say "pimp my stroller," I mean that this is a stroller fit for an actual pimp.

Maclaren's latest stroller offering is so not the shiznit. Or, if you have a stable of crack hos working a corner to keep you in malt liquor, it very well might be. Sprung from the pages of King* magazine in between ads for spinning chrome rims and grillz, it's the new Maclaren GB Type Au.

The seat is made of black leather and the carbon fiber frame has been painted with only the finest 9k gold. For those that appreciate the best in conspicuous consumption, the Maclaren crest is embroidered on the back of the seat rest.

Only 20 of these babies have been manufactured, and they sell for a whopping $3800. Hey, Beyoncé and Jay-Z: you better get cracking in the baby-making department. This stroller has your names written all over it. Not literally, but I'm sure they'd do a Rocawear version.

*My favorite magazine ever.

Wow.

And Rocawear does make its own strollers. I saw one on my block earlier and was searching for a picture of it when I came across this hot mess.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

I had the chance to catch a screening of 3:10 to Yuma last night. I'm confident that this is the movie capable of making the Western relevant again. Actually, let me rephrase — it's not that the Western as a genre is patently irrelevant; it's just that no one's made one worth mentioning in years* (ahem). It's interesting, then, that 3:10 will pull in just before buzzed-about vehicles like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Fordand No Country for Old Men (the former being far more hyped than the latter — blame it on the Weeds). Admittedly, I haven't seen the 1957 original starring Glenn Ford, but according to co-star/all-around zany moonstruck bastard Peter Fonda (who made a brief post-screening appearance and proceeded to scare the shit out of me), it's "dry." (An aside: The source material for this film was a story by Elmore Leonard. Read Duane's great Q&A with the man here.) The plot follows Dan Evans (Christian Bale), an Arizona rancher and Civil War vet who lost part of his leg in combat. He's both physically and psychologically broken — forever slowed by the injury and emasculated by an extended drought that cripples his herd and renders him close to incapable of caring for his wife (Gretchen Mol) and two sons. But fortune (or rather, survival) manifests itself in the form of notorious highwayman Ben Wade (Russell Crowe), who's captured in the town adjacent to Dan's land. The law offers Dan $200 to join a caravan (a ragtag group that includes Fonda's bounty hunter) escorting the deadly (and sexy!) Wade to the town of Contention, where he'll board the titular 3:10 train to his own hanging. Believe it or not, a bunch of crazy shit happens en route. While director James Mangold's action sequences do not disappoint (a yellow-toothed Luke Wilson is involved in one particularly arm-pinching sequence), it's the perceptive contributions of Bale and Crowe — as well as the curious mixture of respect and disgust that colors their relationship — that make the movie so watchable. But if you want to know who truly stole the show, look no further than Ben Foster, who's probably best-known as Angel from X-Men: The Last Stand.** Here, he portrays Charlie Prince, Wade's right arm, with a volatile mixture of comedy and bloodlust, all crazed, bug-eyed looks and sociopathic swagger. (I noted a bit of a homosexual subtext between his Prince and Wade, as well, which makes it all the more interesting/gay.) 3:10 to Yuma hits theaters September 7. * Potential exception to this: I haven't seen The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, but I've heard good things. ** Here's an excerpt from a conversation I had with Pat regarding Foster. Me: "Angel from X-Men 3." Pat: "I don't know who that is. Wait...the guy with the wings?" Me: "Yes."